feel like i got catfished. the gameplay loop here entirely kills this for me - i was under the impression Pacific Drive was gonna be a linear(ish) journey to the heart of the Stalker Zone but it ends up being an almost roguelike experience centred around going out on missions from your garage hubworld. it's more of a loot-centric game than a driving one, one way less lonely and more game-y than i hoped. i'm not into crafting survival games at all but the concept really intrigued me, just not enough to not groan at its opening garage tutorial segment or not feel like it was getting tedious after two missions. not bad, if you're into these sorts of games you'll defo find something valuable here, just really let me down personally.

i feel like my fellow gay bitches online are all lying to me on this one. big issue: i think its story kind of sucks. Signalis is more interested in cryptic lore dumps, ominous poetry, mysteriously censored documents, and spooooky german words than actually setting an atmosphere or crafting a world. the protagonists' romance is supposed to be the beating heart but it read as very bland and hollow, you never get to know much about them and (SPOILERS) they all used to read Word Up magazine anyways. i'm not interested in filling in its blanks because none of it made me feel emotions. this would be fine if it was better to play but Signalis is too easy - its toughest element is its limited inventory, combat is largely avoidable and not too challenging if engaged with. there's not enough friction here, your android girl is a great runner and a great shot. the art direction is very nice, the models and lighting look gorgeous, but there's not enough unique assets in the game. it felt like i was mostly in the same few places fighting the same few enemies the entire time. i do think it succeeds at having some pretty inventive puzzles and i do love the first-person segments, i wish there were more (non-narrarive) setpiece-oriented ones. Signalis had one last thing it could do to hook me, but it loses me here too - none of this game is fucked up! there's never any freaky shit going down, no psychosexual pervert nightmares or nasty stuff or even anything slightly disturbing. i like yuri, i crave that sicko shit!!! Signalis felt like a dystopian teen YA with a bit of sprinkle of Twilight Syndrome and sci-fi militarism, very tame for what was supposed to be a hellish pseudo-reality.

i only really watch youtube videos about video games. Bubsy 3D is a game i've been hearing about since i was eight, serving as the arch-enemy of many a white boy with a camera and a zelda t-shirt. Bubsy 3D has, more than any other game on earth, been forced onto gamers by their evil clones while they plead to play 'anything but THAT game!!!', a game routinely branded as "THE WORST GAME EVER?!?" - which it could never actually be because it makes me feel things.

i love Bubsy 3D's goofy soundtrack, its oddly evocative minimalist landscapes, and i kinda love Bubsy himself but i'd never pretend it's fun to play. it's fun to think about, to imagine how hard it must've been to develop. everyone brings up how shit it looks in comparison to Mario 64, but you gotta remember the only "3D platformers" before its development began were Bug! (not an actual 3D platformer) and Jumping Flash! - neither of which had third-person 3D platforming, both of which had really exciting exclamation points. i just don't think Bubsy 3D really deserves the scorn late-2000s internet gave it. maybe a marginally better reputation, not a good one.